DEVELOPMENT OF SHORT-TERM MEMORY FOR SPEECH ATTRIBUTES

工作记忆（Working memory， WM）可以定义为为了完成一项心理任务，如理解、解决问题或连续回忆，可以在大脑中保存和操纵的信息量。WM通常用需要同时存储和处理信息的任务来衡量。过去的研究表明，WM的个体和发展差异对于这种复杂的认知任务很重要，但尚不清楚WM测量及其发展变化的基本过程。这个修订后的竞争性延续建议采用了我们最近设计的方法来观察几个基本处理参数的发展变化，从6岁到成年：近期信息的短期记忆重审率，快速发音率；记忆：自动保存信息的持久性，如感觉记忆；以及s.t.m.的能力，以不相关的信息块来衡量。观察这些参数的发展变化是很重要的，因为许多研究人员已经提出，大多数这些基本参数（类似于计算机硬件）保持固定，这主要是知识和策略（类似于计算机软件）随着儿童时期的发展而变化。计划中的研究不仅仅是为基本参数的发展变化积累进一步的支持，还有其他三个具体目标。(1)第一个目标是了解信息处理系统中基本参数的作用机制。例如，一项研究考察了容量限制是否如预期的那样是注意力焦点的中心限制，还是特定模式商店的容量限制（例如，听觉/言语和视觉/空间刺激的单独容量限制）。(2)第二个目的是了解基本参数如何相互影响。例如，一项研究通过在检索率的测量过程中施加记忆负荷来检验重审率的发展变化是否可能是容量限制变化的间接后果。(3)第三个目标是了解基本参数与更复杂的信息处理能力指标之间的关系，以及它们之间的关系。这将在相对较大的相关研究中进行调查，并采用包含基本参数的模型，复杂和简单的记忆广度，以及能力和学业成就的测量。这一理论的进步也应该有助于理解各种学习和语言障碍，这些障碍已知以记忆广度差为特征，其理论原因需要澄清。

Working memory (WM) can be defined as the amount of information that can be held in the mind and manipulated in order to allow the completion of a mental task such as comprehension, problem-solving, or serial recall. WM often is measured with tasks that require the storage and processing of information at the same tome. Past research shows that individual and developmental differences in WM are important for such complex cognitive tasks, but it is not yet clear what basic processes underlie WM measures and their developmental change. This revised competing continuation proposal adapts methods that we have devised recently to observe developmental changes in serval basic processing parameters, from age 6 to adulthood: the short-term memory retrial rate for recently presented information, speeded articulation rates; the persistence of automatically held information, such as sensory memory; and the capacity of S.T.M., measured in unrelated chunks of information. The observations of developmental changes in these parameters are important because many researchers have suggested that most of these basic parameters (analogous to computer hardware) stay fixed, and that is primarily knowledge and strategies (analogous to computer software) that change with development in childhood. Rather than just accumulating further support for developmental changes in the basic parameters, the planned research has three other specific aims. (1) The first aim is to understand the mechanisms of the basic parameters within information processing system. For example, one study examines whether the capacity limits are central limits in the attentional focus as expected, or instead are capacity limits in modality-specific stores ( e.g., separate capacity limits for auditory/verbal and visual/spatial stimuli). (2) the second aim is to learn how the basic parameters influence one another. For example, one study examines whether the developmental change in retrial rates could be an indirect consequence of the change in capacity limits, by imposing a memory load during the measure of retrieval rates. (3) The third aim is to learn how the basic parameters are related to more complex measures of information processing ability, as well as to one another. This will be investigated in relatively large correlational study and with models incorporating the basic parameters, complex as well as simple memory spans, and measures of aptitude and scholastic achievement. This theoretical advance also should help in understanding various learning and language disorders, which are known to be marked by poor memory span for theoretical reasons that need clarification.